


Left Behind

by ArsonEmbre



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Gen, Honestly don’t know what else to tag this, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsonEmbre/pseuds/ArsonEmbre
Summary: Sometimes you do things that hurt for the people you love because you’re afraid to hurt them.
Kudos: 4





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> *Slides you a 20 over the table* If you realized this was a vent fic, no you didn’t

Seifer has never known how to be in control of his own feelings. What he’s learned to do is hide those feelings and put up one hell of a front so that only the people closest to him could tell when he wasn’t okay. Even as he noticed his presence, his emotions, his tantrums and breakdowns taking a toll on the ones he cared about, he began to shut them out as well. 

It was easier for him to stay quiet and let people believe that he was getting better. All of the happy smiles, waking up to one of his friends messaging him about how proud they are of him. He had come a long way from being a high school bully that everyone hated. He had come a very long way from picking on a kid routinely to...being one of his best friends.

It all started with an admission. Three words that were the hardest to say.

Some time after graduation, Seifer had realized that making others miserable wasn’t going to make him happy. It never did, so why would he continue doing it? In the span of a month or so, he felt as though he had aged years before he was supposed to. Everything hurt, his heavy emotional baggage seemed the heaviest it had ever been. So when Hayner had confronted him and asked him why Seifer had chosen him to pick on throughout the course of their high school career, he told the truth.

“You were the only one who would fight back.”

He might have been awful, but he refused to pick on anyone who was defenseless. A defenseless person wouldn’t shout at him when he got in his face or push him when he got just a little too close. They wouldn’t stand their ground, or even throw the first punch sometimes. Hayner had bever been defenseless. He stood on equal ground with Seifer, as much as he previously hated to admit it. Everyone else he picked on could hold their own just as well, but no one could give him what for the way Hayner could. That kid knew how to make it count and make it hurt. And maybe there was a part of him that enjoyed the pain.

The conversation did not go well, at first. Hayner was angry, rightfully so, and all Seifer did was add fuel to the flames by being short with him. The angrier that he got, the more Seifer backed down from what usually would have been a challenge. Worst case scenario, a fight. But he kept his hands stuffed in his pockets, kept his eyes on the ground, kept his voice as calm and steady as it could be.

“What’s your problem?!”

Seifer had shrugged. There had been no reason to lie. “I’m not okay.”

It was the most open and honest he had ever been with anyone, though he’d barely put together an entire sentence. They stood in silence for a while after that, neither knowing what to do or say after that. But thankfully, Hayner seemed to understand. Or take pity on him. Whatever it was that made Hayner sit next to him when he’d grown tired of standing and took a seat right there on the sidewalk, he was thankful for it. He stayed right there with him for hours. Until he was ready to talk. Until he couldn’t stop talking. Until he was finished ripping himself apart.

That evening, Hayner gave him the most important advice he had ever heard.  _ If you don’t like who you are...change it. You can always be something or someone better. It’s not too late. _

Seifer really thought that he could. Hayner had said those words like he truly believed them. Like he believed in him. He decided to make an honest effort. The kid he used to fight with very quickly turned into one of his biggest supporters, and one of his closest friends. He was surprised by how well Hayner seemed to fit in with his little trio—himself, Rai, and Fuu. The latter two loved him, and took to him as if he had always been there. He wasn’t at all surprised when he was flat out rejected by Hayner’s group of friends. He had never expected immediate acceptance nor did he think he would ever get their forgiveness. He stayed distant from them for years.

Olette was the first one to crack. When they were attending yet another graduation, she had given him a hug so tight that it felt like she was trying to squeeze some of his broken pieces together. And maybe she had succeeded. The way she’d smiled at him let him know that he had done something to earn her favor. Olette was no longer upset with him. She later joined Hayner in trying to help him become a better person.

Pence was next, and thankfully the easiest. All Hayner had had to do was tell Pence that  _ Seifer’s cool now, I swear _ , and his angry disposition flipped like a switch. His glare dissolved like cotton candy in water, and soon he was sitting next to him on that green couch calling him buddy and talking to him about shoes. As it turned out, the two of them both had a love for sneakers and could (and did) spend hours on end talking about them. 

Roxas had been the hardest to convince. Seifer realized that he had been the fire behind Hayner’s anger, the sneer in Olette’s gaze, and the reluctance and hesitation in every interaction he’d had with Pence before. Roxas didn’t think he had changed at all, and wasn’t afraid to tell them that to their faces. Seifer didn’t blame him for wanting nothing to do with him, or for trying to convince Hayner, Pence, and Olette to feel the same way. He was trying to protect them from someone who, in his eyes, had done nothing but hurt him in the past. He had called Seifer an abuser that day, and that was something that stuck with him for a very long time.

It took Roxas a little over a year to finally come around, and even then he was noticeably cautious. Seifer never once blamed him. The only thing he did was make sure that he never spoke a word if the two of them ever ended up alone in a room together, and Hayner tried his best to make sure that never happened.

For a while, everything was fine. He was on his way to being better, and was visibly better than he had been in high school, but the echoes of the word abuser never left his head. Ever since he’d heard it, he’d become extremely careful of the words he’d say, how he would speak to and treat the people who were willing to call his friends. He wasn’t a perfect friend, but he did try the very best he could.

But again, Seifer has never known how to be in control of his own feelings. He still got angry. He still became overwhelmed with a debilitating sadness that would keep him from leaving his bed some days. He would still be haunted by the thought that Roxas thought the worst of him, and was terrified to prove him right. All of them had been so kind and so helpful, encouraging him and walking with him down a new, brighter path, but with every day that passed, he started to believe he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve these friends. He didn’t deserve this opportunity to better himself. He couldn’t control or overcome his anger. He couldn’t stop the doubts. He couldn’t think of himself as any better than he used to be when all of his habits and feelings were exactly the same.

So, Seifer became someone different. When he wasn’t okay, he let himself fade into the background. When he was angry, he would leave and find something to busy himself with until he calmed down in fear of hurting anyone again. When he couldn’t leave his bed, he lied about being busy so that no one would worry about him. He lied about getting better, emotionally. Seifer didn’t learn how to treat people better, he learned how to avoid hurting them. And he wasn’t sure that was “better.”

But most of them still believed in him. Hayner was happy for him. That was what was supposed to matter. Not the way Roxas looked at him or thought of him, not the way his emotions would cause him physical pain, or the way he would become ill whenever another article would vaguely list abuse tactics and describe what a terrible friend was.

Eventually...Seifer stopped trying. He no longer had the energy to message anyone first. More lies about being busy so that they wouldn’t spend any time on him. Seifer stopped talking about what was going on inside his head and his heart. It wasn’t their burden to deal with. They had heard the same complaints too many times, and he was sure that they were sick of them by then. Seifer, slowly but surely, stopped meeting up with them, no matter how much it would hurt to see them all having fun together hours later on social media.

Seifer, unwillingly to bother them any more than he already had, let himself fade into the background. Never telling them how much he appreciated their efforts, but that they were wasted on an abuser like him. Never telling them how much he missed them, or that he loved them more than he could ever love himself. He let himself be forgotten, watching all of their accomplishments, marriages, children, reunions from behind a screen.

They seemed happier without him. And if his suffering meant that they could drop his dead weight and truly be happy in life, then that was okay. He refused to cause them any more pain or trouble. People like him were meant to be left behind.


End file.
